


from "for now" to "forever"

by sayomiya



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, an average day of me making bad life decisions, mothers day fic, other people are mentioned in the fic but they dont actually appear so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-05-04 08:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14588811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayomiya/pseuds/sayomiya
Summary: When "for now" becomes "forever" and "goodbye" turns to "hello".Kaoru expected to be alone at the cemetery that day.[Early Mother's Day fic][Update: Read 2nd chapter for a link to a fake Mother's Day event story!]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi!!! this is my first time writing an actual enstars fic (except the one i'm currently writing with evi) so forgive me if i wrote them ooc ;; i feel like kanakao would work well for mother's day so i decided to write it! please enjoy~

_He stares, wide-eyed by his father’s side, as his tiny brain is unable to make out the meaning of the unchanging line on the heart monitor._

 

_But he can tell that Mother isn’t moving, and that it’s bad, from the way Father’s hands grip his tiny one with a force that makes him think it’s going to break, and from the way nurses and doctors fill the room with a cacophony of worried sounds._

 

_He stares at Mother’s face, set with the same serene, kind smile he was used to seeing every day, and he stares at how her eyelids are paper-thin and how she almost looks like a ghost, deathly pale, absolutely still and ironically beautiful._

 

_Somehow, he knows she will never open her eyes again, and he cries then._

 

_—_

 

It is raining. 

 

It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. It’s raining; the sky is swallowed by a blanket of angry grey clouds, and missiles of water seem to gravitate to him, the droplets piercing through his shirt and, if such a truth could stretch far enough, his heart.

 

At least the sound of the downpour is a good distraction. It drowns out the intermittent thoughts that sneak their way in from time to time, allowing him no time to dwell on it before the next one comes.

 

But somehow, squatting over a headstone while nobody else in the world knew where he was— it feels a little lonely too.

 

He supposed that, in the end, it’s all his fault. 

 

Who was the idiot that had thrown around meaningless smiles, flirting with every girl in sight and dancing around the harsh words that he’d gotten from his fellow students in response? Who was the one who had kept all his classmates and club members and hell, _unit_ members at an arm’s length; the one who had established himself on the very first day of his first-year as nothing more than a shallow flirt who wanted nothing to do with men?

 

_Look at me now,_ he thinks. Stranded in a graveyard, skipping school without telling anyone and not caring about whatever scolding that awaited him once he awaited home—his siblings really have thrown away their lives for a nobody.

 

He can’t help but laugh to himself as he imagines the situation back at school. Izumi and Chiaki would just assume it was another normal day of him skipping classes. Keito would welcome him back with a glare and a demand for an explanation. Souma would rant to Kanata about how that “lecherous man” was not welcome in the marine bio club, and Rei—he doesn’t even attend unit practice, so he doubts that his unit members would even know he was gone.

 

In a way, it’s kind of pathetic.

 

The rain continues to pound down around him, falling down in opaque sheets so white he couldn’t make out his surroundings more than a few metres around him, and it made him shiver.

 

Was it too selfish to wish that he’d done things differently? That he’d reached out and that someone could have been here with him, lightening the suffocating atmosphere just a little bit?

 

This time, Kaoru can’t choke back his sobs.

 

“I’m sorry, Mother.”

 

—

 

_“Come back here, you disgrace!” Souma calls, ever so friendly with his greetings, and he obliges by ducking out of way of his sword once again. That thing would kill him one day, he swore. “You have no reason to be here! Do not call yourself a member of the Marine Life Club when you do not even attend club meetings!”_

 

_Behind them, Kanata’s soothing voice says something he can’t quite catch, and he just laughs as Souma continues to spit insults at him._

 

_Deep down, he knows he’s right. He knows that he doesn’t deserve such a club; doesn’t deserve Kanata’s kind words and endless infatuation with him. Souma’s words cut into him just like his sword will one day, deep and bloody and painful enough to make his breath catch in his throat._

 

_He is a “disgrace”, just as his father calls him every other day; just as how he can see it in his sibling’s dull gazes._

 

_But he just lets a lazy smile sweep over his face._

 

_“That’s harsh, Souma-kyun~ I’m hurt, you know?”_

 

—

 

He blinks for a moment, realising he’d fallen asleep amidst delirious mutterings to the headstone, to Mother, and that it isn’t raining anymore.

 

He realises next that it is, in actual fact, still raining, and water still crashes down around him. He takes the opportunity to look up, mind full of cotton wool from the impromptu nap he’d taken—and freezes once he does so.

 

Kanata leans over him, the bright red of the umbrella sticking out like a sore thumb amidst the lifeless monochromes that seem to stretch on as far as he can see, and he startles, scrambling into a sitting position as he stares at the boy.

 

“Kanata-kun?” His mind flails for words to say, but all traces of helpful thoughts seem to evaporate just then. _Shit_ is the only thing he repeats in his brain, because there’s no way Kanata will buy it if he tries to brush him off. “What are you doing here?”

 

His friend shrugs. “I could ‘ask’ the same to Kaoru.”

 

Kaoru glances down at the wet grass in response. There’s no point is answering when Kanata already knows; even a monkey could have guessed from where they were both in. He fiddles with his thumbs, and the both of them remain quiet for a moment—Kaoru doesn’t know what to do, but Kanata’s eyes are thoughtful, as if piecing together all the little pieces of information he’d gather over countless late nights they’d shared in the Marine Life clubroom, as if remembering the few times they’d met years ago, before Yumenosaki had ever existed in their heads.

 

Then, Kanata breaks the silence, and his light voice reminds Kaoru of the rain somehow. “Chiaki said you did not ‘come’ today. I was ‘worried’ about you, so I ‘came’.”

 

And that makes him smile a little, because of course Kanata would do that; of course Kanata would come all the way to a graveyard that he’d never been to before in the middle of a downpour—it all has the lingering smell of Kanata to it.

 

“…how did you even know I was here?” he manages to say, and it’s out of genuine curiosity this time. He doesn’t remember ever telling Kanata about the cemetery.

 

Kanata just smiles, and in the dim rays of sunlight peeking through the clouds, he looks every bit as mysterious as an oddball should be. “I have my ‘ways’.”

 

He doesn’t reply, because he doesn’t know how the _hell_ he’s supposed to respond to that. 

 

“You didn’t have to come, you know.” The air between them is stale, and he forces himself to keep the conversation going. “I would have been fine. This is just a one day kind of event.”

 

His friend ignores him and manoeuvres himself so that he’s next to Kaoru, and he closes his eyes, setting down the umbrella for a moment and clasping his hands together in a praying motion. He’s muttering things under his breath that even Kaoru can’t hear, and he raises an eyebrow at that.

 

Before he can even ask about it, Kanata turns to face him again.

 

“I was ‘talking’ to your mother,” Kanata hums, as if it’s a perfectly normal thing for someone to do. “I was ‘telling’ her how you’ve been ‘doing’, and I also ‘thanked’ her for raising you to be a good ‘child’.”

 

The last sentence catches him off guard, and he just stares at Kanata, an indescribable lump forming at the back of his throat.

 

“Kaoru is a ‘wonderful’ friend,” he continues, and Kaoru wants to tell him to _stop,_ because it’s causing some uncomfortable feeling to knot in his stomach. “He didn’t ‘leave’ me alone even when I ‘tried’, and because of ‘that’, I am not a ‘coelacanth’ any more.”

 

He pauses for a moment. “I want to do the ‘same’ for Kaoru when he is ‘hurting’.”

 

That elicits a small noise from him, and he’s trying his best not to cry again, but Kanata’s voice is so soft and soothing and it feels like he’s ten years back in the past, wrapped in his mothers arms when everything was alright and he still remembers the feeling of warmth.

 

The two of them fall silent again, and Kanata smiles at him.

 

“The ‘others’ were also ‘worried’ about you,” he says, and it’s punctuated by a sharp breath from Kaoru. “Rei told me that he could ‘sense’ something different about you. Chiaki wanted to ‘come along’ with me. Souma told me to “tell” you that you can ‘feed’ Kamegorou today instead.”

 

Kaoru’s gaze lands back on the ground, not because he doesn’t have anything to say, but because he doesn’t want Kanata to see him crying again. 

 

He wants to say something; he wants to say _thank you_ or something along these lines, but there are too many things we wants to say and too many apologies he wants to make. Kanata seems to understand, though, and just pats his head soothingly.

 

“Kanata-kun,” he manages to say when his voice feels like it can work again, “do you think I screwed up?”

 

When Kanata tilts his head, he moves his hands, hoping they can somehow explain what his words can’t. “I mean, my siblings threw away their lives for me, and here I am fooling around with girls and crying my eyes out here. I couldn’t even talk with any of my classmates without pissing them off.”

 

Kanata’s gaze is so intense it looks like he might smack Kaoru with the forgotten umbrella, and he shakes his head so firmly Kaoru’s tempted to believe him on the spot.

 

“Kaoru did not ‘screw up’,” he says. “Kaoru has ‘friends’ that will be by his side ‘no matter what’, because he was a ‘good child’.”

 

He thinks he needs to hear that—because he’s so sick of feeling like it’s the other way round—and doesn’t try to stop the tears this time.

 

“There, there,” Kanata says. “Kaoru should ‘let’ it out.”

 

And so he does.

 

—

 

_“Kaoru…’thank you’ for today.”_

 

_He can’t quite get over the electric feeling of performing; he never has, and as he waves to a screaming crowd and flings them his widest smile, he thinks that this is really what he was meant to be doing all along._

 

_“No problem,” he says back. Kanata looks ethereal as usual, with a hand against the smooth, dark skin of a dolphin and a dazzling smile to face the audience with, and for a moment, he wants to be able to see that expression of his from the audience. “Everyone cares a lot about you, so don’t start running away again, alright?”_

 

_“Alright,” Kanata agrees, burying everything he wants to convey in one simple word._

 

_They turn back to the performance afterwards._

 

—

 

Later, as they’re back in the clubroom long after everyone else has gone home, Kaoru swipes open his phone to a mass of worried messages.

 

He smiles, and Kanata leans over to read them, humming in agreement before turning back to watch the fish circle around and around.

 

_Perhaps,_ he thinks, surrounded by the dim lights of the tanks as they idly play with Kamegorou— _this wasn’t so bad after all._


	2. [READ ME!!]

Hey everyone! I think you remember me writing this all the way back in the year for Mother's Day.

Thanks for the overwhelming support you guys showed! I honestly didn't expect this to get so many kudos and comments, and every bit of support really made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside <3

But that aside, I thought I should share this on here.

This one-shot was basically an adaptation of a fake Mother's Day event story me and my friend was working on, with Kaoru and Madara as the 5*s! We finally finished it, and I thought it would be fitting to share it here as well, since that was the cause of this one-shot existing in the first place.

The link is [here!](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xk6lkoACzH3q-datj1UHFAlWAzaOTJdK8Iz3GNZ7s0s/edit?usp=sharing)

We hope you enjoy it, and you can find us both at our respective Twitters if you ever want to scream about it!!

Once again, thank you for reading!


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